A privacy-preserving, decentralized and functional Bitcoin e-voting protocol

Bitcoin, as a decentralized digital currency, has caused extensive research interest. There are many studies based on related protocols on Bitcoin, Bitcoin-based voting protocols also received attention in related literature. In this paper, we propose a Bitcoin-based decentralized privacy-preserving voting mechanism. It is assumed that there are n voters and m candidates. The candidate who obtains t ballots can get x Bitcoins from each voter, namely nx Bitcoins in total. We use a shuffling mechanism to protect voter's voting privacy, at the same time, decentralized threshold signatures were used to guarantee security and assign voting rights. The protocol can achieve correctness, decentralization and privacy-preservings. By contrast with other schemes, our protocol has a smaller number of transactions and can achieve a more functional voting method.Comment: 5 pages;3 figures;Smartworld 201

Attenuation of antigen-induced airway hyperresponsiveness and inflammation in CXCR3 knockout mice

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>CD8+ T cells participate in airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) and allergic pulmonary inflammation that are characteristics of asthma. CXCL10 by binding to CXCR3 expressed preferentially on activated CD8+ T cells, attracts T cells homing to the lung. We studied the contribution and limitation of CXCR3 to AHR and airway inflammation induced by ovalbumin (OVA) using CXCR3 knockout (KO) mice.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Mice were sensitized and challenged with OVA. Lung histopathological changes, AHR, cellular composition and levels of inflammatory mediators in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid, and lungs at mRNA and protein levels, were compared between CXCR3 KO mice and wild type (WT) mice.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Compared with the WT controls, CXCR3 KO mice showed less OVA-induced infiltration of inflammatory cells around airways and vessels, and less mucus production. CXCR3 KO mice failed to develop significant AHR. They also demonstrated significantly fewer CD8+ T and CD4+ T cells in BAL fluid, lower levels of TNFα and IL-4 in lung tissue measured by real-time RT-PCR and in BAL fluid by ELISA, with significant elevation of IFNγ mRNA and protein expression levels.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We conclude that CXCR3 is crucial for AHR and airway inflammation by promoting recruitment of more CD8+ T cells, as well as CD4+ T cells, and initiating release of proinflammatory mediators following OVA sensitization and challenge. CXCR3 may represent a novel therapeutic target for asthma.</p

Prediction of SWCC of Saline Soil in Western Jilin Based on Arya-Paris Model

The saline soil distributed in Western Jilin Province could cause a serious of damages to local construction engineering and agriculture. The relationship between water content and soil suction has great influence on engineering properties, and effect the water migration and forming of saline soil. This paper aims to the saline soil in Zhenlai area of Western Jilin province, the basic properties test were taken in laboratory, and Arya-Paris prediction model were chosen to predict the SWCC of saline soil in Western Jilin. The results show that the 30cm soil sample has lower water holding capacity than the 50cm soil sample, which means the water migration rate is higher of 30cm. The results may provide theoretical support and beneficial reference for research and prediction of engineering properties and forming mechanism of saline soil

Prediction of SWCC of Saline Soil in Western Jilin Based on Arya-Paris Model

The saline soil distributed in Western Jilin Province could cause a serious of damages to local construction engineering and agriculture. The relationship between water content and soil suction has great influence on engineering properties, and effect the water migration and forming of saline soil. This paper aims to the saline soil in Zhenlai area of Western Jilin province, the basic properties test were taken in laboratory, and Arya-Paris prediction model were chosen to predict the SWCC of saline soil in Western Jilin. The results show that the 30cm soil sample has lower water holding capacity than the 50cm soil sample, which means the water migration rate is higher of 30cm. The results may provide theoretical support and beneficial reference for research and prediction of engineering properties and forming mechanism of saline soil

A Constrained Algorithm Based NMF α

Nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) is a useful tool in learning a basic representation of image data. However, its performance and applicability in real scenarios are limited because of the lack of image information. In this paper, we propose a constrained matrix decomposition algorithm for image representation which contains parameters associated with the characteristics of image data sets. Particularly, we impose label information as additional hard constraints to the α-divergence-NMF unsupervised learning algorithm. The resulted algorithm is derived by using Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions as well as the projected gradient and its monotonic local convergence is proved by using auxiliary functions. In addition, we provide a method to select the parameters to our semisupervised matrix decomposition algorithm in the experiment. Compared with the state-of-the-art approaches, our method with the parameters has the best classification accuracy on three image data sets

Immune checkpoint blockade therapy for BRAF mutant metastatic colorectal cancer: the efficacy, new strategies, and potential biomarkers

Abstract BRAF mutant metastatic colorectal cancer has long been considered a tumor with a poor prognosis and a poor response to chemotherapy. Despite the efficacy of targeted therapy with multi-targeted blockade of the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway has brought a glimmer of hope to this group of patients, the need to improve treatment efficacy remains unmet, especially for the microsatellite stability/DNA proficient mismatch repair (MSS/pMMR) subtype. BRAF mutant colorectal cancer patients with high microsatellite instability/DNA deficient mismatch repair (MSI-H/dMMR) have high tumor mutation burden and abundant neoantigen, who are deemed as ones that could receive expected efficacy from immunotherapy. Generally, it is believed that MSS/pMMR colorectal cancer is an immunologically “cold” tumor that is insensitive to immunotherapy. However, targeted therapy combined with immune checkpoint blockade therapy seems to bring light to BRAF mutant colorectal cancer patients. In this review, we provide an overview of clinical efficacy and evolving new strategies concerning immune checkpoint blockade therapy for both MSI-H/dMMR and MSS/pMMR BRAF mutant metastatic colorectal cancer and discuss the potential biomarkers in the tumor immune microenvironment for predicting immunotherapeutic response in BRAF mutant colorectal cancer